Authors unite to tackle climate change

A number of acclaimed authors, including Margaret Atwood and David Mitchell, have come together to write a new collection of short stories that will address the growing problem of climate change.

I'm With the Bears will be published in October and it also includes the contributions of Toby Litt, Helen Simpson and T. Coraghessan Boyle, who have each written a short story designed to change readers' perceptions of the environmental issues affecting the planet.

Environmental campaigner Bill McKibben has written an introduction to the collection and said the book will hopefully influence people in a way that bar charts and graphs never could.

'Imagination is the key here - until we've really understood at some gut level what kind of a threat we're facing, we're unlikely to act with enough commitment. Art gets at the gut,' he told the Guardian.

Publisher Verso said the collection is, in part, a response to the assertion by author Ian McEwan last year that the potential of literature to influence people's perceptions is not being tapped to its full extent as far as climate change is concerned.